Steelers notebook: Steelers still hear Johnson
Although boisterous Bengals wide receiver Chad Johnson is under a gag order in Cincinnati, his words still resonated through the Steelers locker room Thursday. That’s because someone hung up a quote attributed to Johnson after the Bengals beat the Steelers, in which he said, “It’s time for a change. It’s like going from a black-and-white TV to a color TV. It was Pittsburgh and now, it’s Cincinnati.”
Nobody around the locker room fessed up to posting the quote, though most Steelers got a chuckle out of it.
“I ain’t never seen a game won or lost off the field,” Steelers nose tackle Casey Hampton said. “We know what we can do and they know what we can do. Maybe they’re just trying to talk themselves into it.”
Added DE Kimo von Oelhoffen, “You know what, I love him. He’s funning. He’s funny as hell. They’re excited right now. And they’re playing good football. They should be proud of themselves where they’re at. But we still have to play football.”
“It’s another game but it is a bigger game,” said Parker, who ran for 1,202 yards on 255 carries this season. “If you win, you keep moving, if you lose, you die, so we have to keep moving. It is not that big of a deal. It is the playoffs, we know what is at stake.”
“They lead the league in takeaways, so I have to hold onto the ball this time,” Parker said.
The Bengals, however, are vulnerable to the rush. They rank 20th in the league at 115.6 yards allowed per game.